A Life In Pictures
by WritePassion
Summary: Sam finds a box of old photographs in his storage unit that unlocks memories from the past, some good, some bad.  Another installment in the Sam/Yvette series.
1. Chapter 1

****You can blame purdy's pal for this one. She gave me the kernel of an idea, and I just ran with it!

**A Life In Pictures**

By WritePassion

"Hey honey, I'm home!" Yvette pushed through the back door and dropped the plastic bags on the counter, flexed her hand, and shook out the cramp from the twisted handles that cut into her skin. "Sam? Where are you?" She waved a stack of envelopes above her head. "I've got the pictures from our trip!"

She found Sam upstairs in the office. He sat at the desk in the room lit by a wall of open windows that let in the afternoon sun. His legs were extended with his ankles crossed on the surface, his body leaned back in the chair, and he seemed to be intent on something in his hands.

"Sam?"

"Huh? Oh, Eve, you're home!" He dropped the flat object into a shoebox in his lap, dropped the lid on the box, and tossed it onto the desk surface as he stood. "I didn't expect you to be home so soon."

"Where's Samuel?" She looked at him with suspicion as he stood near the desk.

Sam glanced at his watch. "He's been napping for an hour now. He'll probably be up soon. Espie doesn't get home from school for another two hours...why'd you ask?"

"You seemed to be in your own little world there for a bit." She smiled and stepped into the room. "What have you got there that you don't want me to see?"

"Uh, nothing." He put his hand in front of the box.

Yvette grinned and quickly reached around him in an attempt to grab the box, but he twisted and put his hand on it. She caught the edge of the top and pulled, and he pulled back. They heard old cardboard being stressed to its breaking point.

"What's the big deal about this box?"

"It's nothing, honey."

"They why are you protecting it..." Yvette worked her fingers under the cover and pulled harder, and the next thing they knew, the side collapsed and a pile of photographs exploded over the desktop and floor. She stepped back, and they cascaded down over Sam's feet.

"What are these?" She set the photo envelopes down on the desk edge and crouched to pick up the ones that fell on the floor. As she did so, she caught glimpses of a younger Sam and people she didn't know. "Sam, why were you hiding these from me?" She glanced up at him, a lump forming in her throat. "I thought we didn't have any secrets between us, unless they were classified."

"Yeah, well..." He hesitated because he really didn't have a good explanation. "I'm sorry. I don't know why. I was just going through one last box of stuff from my storage unit, and I found these."

"I thought you had pictures in albums."

"I do, but these, well, to tell you the truth, I thought they were long gone."

Yvette picked up the last photograph and carried them in both hands to the desk top, where she carefully tapped them into a neat pile. Some were larger than others, but they lined up with one common side and became orderly under her direction. She glanced down at the one on the top. It was a black and white portrait of a child no more than six months old. He was the spit and image of Samuel at that age. A wide smile crossed her face, and she looked up at him.

"Is this you?"

"Yeah." He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked away, as if the fact that he'd ever been that little was embarrassing.

"This is so cute! We should put this in Samuel's baby album juxtaposed with his picture. You look so much alike, it's unbelievable!" She paused and reached up to caress his cheek. "I don't understand why you feel these have to be hidden away."

"I know there are going to be some pictures in there that, well, shouldn't be on display. Burned is a more fitting option, I'd say."

Yvette's face turned serious. She picked up the photos that still lay on the desk, pressed the pile to herself and left the room. "I'll be right back."

Sam sighed and dropped into the chair. He muttered a curse at the box that gave up his miscalculated treasures and pushed it into the wastebasket to the right of the desk. Then he picked up the new photos that Yvette brought home and went through them. The pictures of himself with Yvette and the kids cheered him up. These were the times worth remembering with a camera.

In less than a minute, Yvette returned with a photo album. "I bought this to put our vacation pictures in, but I think these need a home before we put away the new photos." She smiled as she set the pile on top of the album and took his hand. "Come on, let's go sit in the dining room and look these over."

Sam let out a huge sigh. "Okay, but I don't think it's going to be as much fun as you think. These pictures are pretty boring."

"Let me be the judge of that." Yvette grinned with satisfaction as she led the way downstairs to the dining room.

Like Sam's office, the dining room had a recessed wall that jutted out from the house's main footprint. A bank of south-facing windows let in the light, and a long buffet served as a china and glassware cabinet. It was an almost exact replica of the one in their first house.

"This is the perfect place to spread out all these pictures. We can sort them chronologically and then put them into the album." She placed the album on the table and turned to cover the long counter with the pictures. Sam watched for a few minutes, rubbing his chin thoughtfully as he spied some of the ones he wanted to confiscate before she got a look at them. "Don't even think it!"

"What? Think what?"

She turned and gave him a look she usually reserved for the children when they tried to get away with something. "I know you're thinking of stealing some of these, but you can't. I want an explanation why they seem so horrible that you can't even show them to your wife." She stood with her hands on her hips, gazing at him.

"I shouldn't...I don't want pictures attached to bad memories in the album." He mentally crumbled under her gaze and flapped a hand toward the photographs. "Fine, go ahead and look at 'em! But don't say I didn't warn you!"

"Help me sort these, please." Her voice came out soft as she gently clasped his arm. "Help me understand these photos, and we'll work together to make this a great album covering your past." She curled her arm around his waist and pulled him to the left side of the buffet.

"Can we get rid of the ones I don't want first?"

"Sure, if it'll make you more agreeable to do this."

"Thank you." He moved toward the right, his eyes scanning the pictures. He stopped at one that was out of focus and faded, and it was hard to see the subject matter.

"What is it?"

He flipped it over and read the back. "Poland, 1987. It was a woman I met there, Paulina. She was...an asset..." He let out a breath. "She was killed in the middle of a firefight. I don't even know why I kept this picture. It's not like I was in love with her." He shook his head. "She was the first asset I ever lost."

"I'm sorry." Yvette held him close. He turned and flipped the photo onto the dining room table. "Good idea, start a pile of the ones you don't want to keep."

He took about a half hour sorting through the pictures and every one that he wanted to throw away represented an asset or a friend who died under terrible circumstances. It was a macabre collection of people who were in the prime of their life, some of them smiling for the camera with the exuberance of youth and the false notion of immortality shining in their eyes. Some of them showed the aftermath, the blood and brokenness of war. Yvette could see why he wanted to be rid of those.

"I hear Samuel," Yvette said. "I'll get him."

"No, I can do it." Sam let out a sad exhalation and rubbed the sorrow from his face with one hand. "You have my permission to do whatever you want with those." He pointed to the small pile and left the room.

While he was gone, Yvette went to the kitchen, grabbed a rubber band from the junk drawer, and secured it around the pieces of Sam's life that he wished to discard. After hearing brief stories of the people in them, she couldn't bear to let them be tossed, shredded or burned. Not yet, anyway. For the time being, she stuffed them into the drawer, face down.

"Mommy, I wanna snack." Samuel stood before his father, looking up at Yvette with hope in his eyes.

Yvette turned and smiled down at her son. As time went by, he seemed to look more and more like his father. When he was first born he had sandy blonde hair and blue eyes like her, but the hair darkened and the eyes turned brown within the first six months. He had the Axe family nose and chin, and the cute little dimple at his left cheek when he smiled, like he did at that moment.

"What do you want, Sammy? An orange or graham crackers?"

"Gramma crackers."

"Okay, gramma crackers it is." She couldn't help but smile whenever he mispronounced things. It was too cute, and he would be little for only so long. One day he would get it right, but until then she treasured these times. "Sam, will you take him into the dining room? He can sit there and eat them and we'll work on the photographs."

"Sure. Come on kiddo, let's go look at some pictures!" Now that the photos from the tragic episodes of his life were out of sight, Sam seemed less resistant to continuing with the project.

After Yvette placed the broken up crackers in front of Samuel with a sippy cup of milk, she and Sam went back to work on the photos. They rearranged them chronologically. Yvette could only go by the age of Sam's face in the ones in which he appeared, or by dates stamped into the margins and corners. Sam went behind her and corrected the placement based on his memory.

"Okay, looks like that's all the photos in order, huh?"

"Yeah, as far as I can remember," Sam replied. He saw Samuel trying to get out of the chair, and he turned around to help him.

"Daddy, I wanna go outside."

"Maybe later, sport. Mommy and I are doing something right now."

"Oh Sam, why don't you take him outside? Maybe to the park or something? I can put these into the album now that they're sorted out."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive! I'll have this done in no time." She shooed them toward the door. "Go on, I'll be fine with this!"

"Thank you, sweetheart." He kissed her cheek, leaving a warm impression that lasted after the screen door slammed behind them.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Yvette worked hard putting the photos into the album. The older ones were square and didn't fit as well into the sleeves, but she made it work. When the clock on the mantel struck four, she broke to put a casserole in the oven and went right back to work. Any minute now, Esperanza would be coming through the door after spending some after-school time with her best friend Zoe, their neighbors Tom and Pam's daughter. Like Esperanza she was adopted and loved no less than if she'd shared their genes.

"Hi Mom, I'm home!" The front door opened, and Esperanza dropped her backpack near it before locking the screen behind her. She tucked her key into a pocket on her pack and skipped into the dining room. "Whatcha doing, Mom?"

Ever since she started second grade, Esperanza was suddenly too cool to call her 'Mommy'. Yvette smiled, gave Espie a quick hug and answered, "Your father had some photographs in his stuff, and they were never put into an album. I'm helping him to do that."

"Wow, there are a lot here! Can I help?"

"Well...sure. I think we can make this work." Yvette opened the binder clip and pulled out several pages of sleeves. "Here, take these and start here and fill up all the sleeves front and back, working from left to right, up and down." She demonstrated with a couple of rows, and Esperanza nodded.

"I got it. This'll be so cool! Dad's gonna love this!" She took to her task with a serious bent, her little tongue sticking out between lightly clenched teeth as she pushed a stubborn picture into the sleeve.

"Need help with that?"

"Nope, I'm good!"

_She's so like her father. Always wants to take care of things herself!_

The back screen slammed and she heard footsteps. "Sam, is that you?"

"Yeah, it's Sam and Sam," he replied as he entered the room. "Ah, did you draft her?"

"No Dad, I volunteered!" Esperanza looked at him with a big smile and love in her eyes.

"That's really sweet of you, darlin'!" He gave her a hug and his eyes took in the sight. The surface was almost clear of pictures. "Between the two of you, you made short work of this! Good job!"

"After supper can we sit and look at the pictures, Dad?"

"Do you have homework?" At the sight of her rolling her eyes, he laughed. "I'll take that as a 'yes'. Homework first, then fun."

"Ooooookay," Esperanza gave Yvette the pages she finished and went to get her backpack. "Can you help me with my math again, Dad? It's getting harder with a lot more numbers, and we're doing multiplication. Those times tables are so boring!"

"Okay, let's go up to the office and work on those. Eve, let us know when supper is ready."

"I will."

After supper was eaten, the dishes were put away, and homework was finished, Esperanza pulled the photo album off the buffet and brought it to Sam. "Dad, can we look at this now?"

"Sure. Have a seat right there, and we'll all sit on this end of the table." He placed the album on the dining room table and took a seat in front of it, and Esperanza dragged a chair around the table to sit at his right. Yvette sat with Samuel on her lap next to his left side. "Okay now, don't laugh. Some of these are kind of goofy pictures of me."

The first pictures were of Sam in his infancy and toddler stage. In most of the pictures he appeared with his mother, but there were a few with an older woman and man. Never his father, except for one. Samuel Sr. stood in his formal dress white uniform with his arm around Sam's mother Genevieve, and Sam was nestled in her arms as she smiled for the camera.

"Do you know when that was taken? Your dad looks so serious."

"I don't know. I think he was probably shipping off somewhere. Maybe his first tour after I was born."

"I didn't realize he was around that long."

"Yeah, for a few months, from what I know that Grandma said. But he was restless, couldn't get into being a dad, and...and so he got an assignment on a destroyer and he was gone a lot."

"Dad, that's so sad," Esperanza said as she leaned over and hugged his arm. "I'm glad that you don't have to do that."

"Me too, punkin." He smoothed her hair with his free hand and gave her a kiss on the top of her head. "Anyway...let's keep moving or we'll be here all night!"

He gave brief descriptions to some of the photographs, pointing out friends from elementary school and junior high, some of whom he'd forgotten their names. It amazed him, with all the knowledge he'd absorbed over the years, that he could forget something so simple and basic. It made him feel bad, but then he asked himself, _do they remember me? If they saw my photograph would they be able to spout off my name?_ Probably not. That made him feel a little better.

Esperanza pointed at a picture of Sam in high school and laughed. "Is that you, Dad? Why are your shoulders so big?"

"Yeah, that's me. I was on the football team in high school. That was my freshman year, and I was quarterback on the JV team."

"A quarterback? Did you throw money?"

Sam and Yvette laughed at her question. "No, honey, I threw that football I'm holding. I think one of these days we'll have to watch a game on TV, and I'll teach you all about how it's played." He turned the page. "Now, here's when our team made it to the Michigan state quarter-finals. Mom and I were living in Michigan then. Here's a picture of me in my senior year."

"So serious," Yvette remarked.

"I was trying to get into Annapolis, I had to be serious." He could see by the look on Esperanza's face that a question forming in his daughter's head. "It's like college for people who want to become officers in the Navy. The only way I was getting in is if I could win a scholarship." He turned to Yvette. "There's no way I was going to ask my dad for the money."

Esperanza looked up at him. "Did you do it?"

"Yeah, I did. And when I got out, I graduated as a Lieutenant."

"Wow, that's cool."

"These are some pictures from when I was in school there." He flipped through the photos and stopped on a portrait of himself in his graduation uniform. His eyes were intense as they stared out from under his cap, his lips bearing a slight hint of a smile to counteract the seriousness of his body standing ramrod straight. "You thought I was serious before. Look at me there!"

"On this next page, there I am at Pearl Harbor."

"I know where that is, Dad! The teacher talked about that place in history class! It got bombed really bad."

"Yes, it did, but that was a long, long time ago, and our country rebuilt the base. That was where I was first stationed. And where I became addicted to the shirts." He laughed. "There I am with a...a friend. Lieutenant Hillary. She was a nurse on the base, and we...we had a lot of fun together when we were off." He glanced at Yvette, his cheeks tinged a subtle shade of red.

"Oh Sam, if I had a photo album laced with pictures of old boyfriends, I wouldn't be hesitant to show them to you."

"It's not fair that Mom doesn't have any old pictures like this." Esperanza said as she stuck out her bottom lip in a small pout.

"Yes, you're right, punkin."

"Not like I had much worth taking pictures of. Your Daddy had a lot more exciting life than I did, until I met him." She grinned, leaned over and kissed him.

"Hey, things are still pretty exciting." He kissed her back.

"Eww, gross." Espie held her hand up and blocked the view, causing them to laugh.

"Trust me, kiddo. One day you won't think it's so gross when a boy wants to kiss you. But then he better be careful, because I won't let just anybody kiss my daughter." He spoke with a tender smile and ruffled her hair.

Yvette had a sudden vision of Sam opening the door to Esperanza's first date, standing with part of a Beretta in his hand, the other pieces on the dining room table waiting to be cleaned. She shuddered at the thought.

"Hey, it's getting late. You guys need to go to bed!" Sam left the photo album open to where they stopped, stood, and took Samuel from Yvette's lap. "I'll take the big guy. Espie, go get ready for bed."

"Thanks, Sam." Yvette stayed at the table, looking back at the pages they'd already seen and taking a closer look at some of the photos.

He nodded and followed Esperanza upstairs. By the time she was changed into her pajamas, he had Samuel ready to lay down. They converted the crib into a toddler bed a few months ago, and other than a few incidents where he got up in the middle of the night and walked into his parents' room, he pretty much stayed in bed once he was put there.

"Night, Sammy," Sam said as he leaned over and kissed his son.

"Night, Daddy," Samuel replied, rolled over onto his stomach, and tucked his knees up as he grabbed onto his teddy bear.

"Espie, I see that light on," Sam warned as he went to her bedroom next. The room suddenly was plunged into darkness, and he heard little feet thumping on the wood floor, followed closely by the compression of springs on the bed. She threw the covers over herself just as he entered the room.

"Sorry, Dad. I had to do one thing before going to bed."

"What was it?" He sat on the edge of her bed.

"It's a surprise. I can't tell you."

Sam smiled. "Top secret, huh?"

She nodded. "But some day, it'll be declassified and you can see it. Night!" She sat up, kissed him, and lay back on the pillow.

He bit back the urge to laugh and asked, "Did you say your prayers?"

"Of course, Dad! I never forget that!"

"Good." He leaned over, kissed her cheek, and caressed her face. "Night, punkin."

When he got back downstairs he found Yvette in the kitchen making some coffee. He leaned his backside against the counter, looked at her, and completely lost himself in laughter. Yvette waited for the coffee to brew and for Sam to settle down, all the while looking at him as if he'd gone completely nuts.

"You...you're not going to believe...what Espie said. She's hiding something from me, and she told me when it was declassified I could see it." When Yvette continued to look at him as if he'd gone crazy, he sobered. "I, uh, guess you had to be there."

"I think she's been hanging around you and team Westen too long. She's starting to think like a spy."

That statement wiped the last bit of humor from Sam's laughter. "Yeah, that's probably true."

"Never mind." She touched his cheek lovingly. "Once this coffee's done, let's go look at that album. I'm curious to find out more about your lady friends." The corner of her mouth tipped up, teasing him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Sam was glad he didn't keep too many pictures of his past loves. Considering that there weren't many that he truly loved, it was easy. And when he joined the SEAL team, opportunities to socialize with the opposite sex became harder to come by. Instead, he showed her pictures of places he'd been stationed. There were a lot of landscapes, sunny days, and puffy cloud pictures. Now and then he appeared in a photograph taken by a friend.

Yvette tapped one of him standing on a huge piece of driftwood, the remnants of what must have been a mighty tree. He was shirtless, wearing only swimming trunks and sunglasses. He stared out toward the sea with arms crossed.

"Whooohooo, look at you. Smokin' hot, baby!" Yvette traced the outline of his upper arms. "You had some muscles back then."

"Well, we were in training, and it was tough. If you didn't bulk up, you wouldn't make it."

She reached over and squeezed his arm. "You need to hit the gym more, babe."

"Gee, thanks!"

She laughed and snuggled closer to him. "It's okay, I like you just the way you are." She continued tracing his outline as she spoke. "I wonder what things would have been like if we'd met back then."

"A lot different, you can be sure of that." He quickly turned the page. They glossed over more pictures of him during his early SEAL years, of him in combat gear, dress uniform out on leave, and other scenes of his life back then. "Now, here we're getting into stuff that's a little less ancient history. You recognize him?" He pressed his finger next to a frame of two men standing beneath a stripped tree.

"Where was that taken? It looks like something out of a movie, like after an atomic bomb blast."

"Afghanistan, 1985, I think. And that's Mike, on one of our first operations together." He shook his head. "It was pretty ironic, he was still in the Army, Special Forces, and I was in the Navy SEALs. We were put together on a team of mixed Spec Ops and SEALs, and we all somehow put aside our animosities for the other branch and got the job done." He paused. "This was after the mission. See that bandage on Mike's arm? One more inch and he would have said goodbye to his shooting arm."

"Wow. You look like you came out of it okay."

"Yeah, well, somebody had to stay healthy enough to drag Westen's sorry butt out of the fire!" Sam laughed.

"Even back then, you two were destined to become friends. I can see it in your eyes and his."

"We worked together on and off for a long time." He turned the pages and came upon another post-operation photograph. In this one, Sam sat on a rock, his fatigues bloody. He and Michael had their arms around each other's shoulders, and they both had a haunted look in their eyes. "That mission didn't end quite so well. We lost eight guys. Neither of us got shot up, that's other peoples' blood on us. That was the closest I'd gotten to getting killed without being hit."

"Hey, I've seen a picture of this guy," Yvette remarked as she pointed to a man with close cropped, graying hair and ice blue eyes. "Who is he?"

"Oh, that's Virgil. The next mission I was on with him, and I wasn't so lucky that time." Sam let out a deep breath as the memory of pain came rushing back. "I got shot up pretty bad, and...the enemy was closing in on our location. He should have left me there to die, but Virg, he wouldn't do it. He kept saying I owed him money and he wasn't gonna let me get out of it that easy."

"How much did you owe him?"

"Nothin'. It was just his way of getting me to focus on something besides dying, I guess." He shook his head as he smiled. "A few years ago, he came to town asking for help with a speedboat repo. Mike, Fi, and I helped him out, only it turned out be more than just a simple repo. Hey, where'd you see this picture before?"

"Not this picture specifically. Maddie has some of him in an album I found in the sunroom. I asked her once who he was, but she suddenly changed the subject. I thought maybe it was something tragic. Was it?"

"Not really. Mike just told Virgil to get out of town after the repo thing, and not come back. He inadvertently put Maddie in danger, and, well, you don't do that to Mike's mom and stick around later to date her. Know what I mean?"

Yvette nodded. "Completely. And as we all know, that turned out for the best, didn't it."

"Well, he did come back later and ask for help with another thing, but that time Mike kind of threw up his hands and just let Virgil be Virgil." He let out a sigh. "I guess it wasn't meant to be, because it didn't take long for Virg to get the itch to head back to the Bahamas."

"Hmm." She focused on a series of photographs showing a mountainous area lush with vegitation. "Where were these taken?"

"In Columbia."

She could tell by the short answer that there was a good story behind the pictures, but it was either one he couldn't, or wouldn't, tell. "Oh. If you don't want to talk about that, it's okay."

"No, I don't mind. Speaking of what-ifs, if I had just gone in and done the job without questioning anything, I probably wouldn't be here right now, or anywhere, but in a little plot at Arlington, maybe. These were taken by a young girl, Beatriz. Her dad was a journalist, and she took at least a dozen rolls of this operation, and when I was brought up on trumped up charges, she threatened to release the photos to the press and tell them the truth about what happened. These are the other pictures she took, the unclassified ones." The corner of his mouth tipped up as he gazed at the faces of the villagers in the photos. "They were good people. They didn't deserve to get dragged into the middle of combat to protect their homes."

Yvette pressed her head into his shoulder. "Have you always been this caring for other people?"

"Not really, just those who've had injustice heaped on them. Must have come from my upbringing, being one of those who missed out on so much without my dad there. Some of my friends were in the same boat, so to speak, but it made them angry and lash out at the world. Me...I just wanted to do something to...I don't know."

"As much as I'm enjoying walking down memory lane with you, we should really get some sleep. Tomorrow's another school day, and Samuel has a play date with the Johnson lady's grandson. While the kids play, Maddie and the girls are going to teach me how to play canasta."

"Oh boy, sounds like a fun day!"

Yvette laughed. "And what were you planning on doing?"

"Fishing with Jack. So yeah, I need to get up early if we're going to catch anything."


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Digging through all those old photographs brought back a lot of memories, things he wished he could forget, as well as things that still made him smile and laugh. He was glad that the kids seemed to lose interest in the album, as evidenced by their desire to go outside to play until bedtime. Jack and Sasha stayed after dinner, and once the kids were tucked away, Sam got the album out again.

"I can't believe you still have these pictures, Axeman." Jack flipped through the album from the beginning and stopped on pictures of them in SEAL training. "We were a couple of scrawny dudes back then. Don't know what they ever saw in us that made them think we could cut it." He shook his head and turned the page. "Hey, there we are with that guy. What was his name?"

"Robert...no, Rick..." Sam let out a frustrated sound. "I know it started with an R."

"Raymond. That was it. We called him Rayban, 'cause he always wore those dorky sunglasses. Like those right there," Jack said with a laugh as he pointed to a geeky looking guy.

"He was our radio man on a lot of operations," Sam said. "Until he got shot up in Afghanistan."

"Yeah, that was bad. He made it home, but lost a leg." Jack shook his head. "I heard he made a boatload of money with the tech stocks, and he teaches at a school in California."

"Chemistry, I hope." A smile crossed Sam's face.

"Oh yeah." Jack laughed, then explained to the clueless women. "Rayban was our radio guy, but he was also a whiz with explosives and setting up trip wires and stuff."

"He could probably teach Fiona a few things," Sam added.

Jack nodded. "Rayban could build a landmine out of some rat poison, dental floss, and a soup can. He was amazing!"

"We lost an important piece of our team when he went stateside," Sam added with a nod. "It's good to hear he's doing well for himself."

They moved on to more photos of Sam and Jack and other members of their team. "Looks like you guys did a lot of partying when you weren't on an operation," Sasha said with a sidelong glance at her husband.

"We worked hard, we played hard, baby." He pulled her close and kissed her. "Still do."

"It must become so ingrained, they don't know anything else," Yvette remarked as she glanced at Sam.

"Could be. One thing I do know is that all the other SEAL friends Jack has are the same. But some of them are also, I don't know, closed off socially. They're rough, tough, and love their fun, but outside of a mission or a party, they wouldn't know what to do with themselves."

"You must be talking about him," Sam said and pointed to a picture of a very serious looking man in the middle of their team. "Darius O'Grady. Everybody called him Dairy-O. He hated it, but it kind of stuck." He and Jack shared a laugh. "It's funny how nicknames get pinned on you, and you may not like 'em, but they become yours."

Yvette looked at him. "So how'd you get Axeman? I understand the play on your last name, but there has to be more than that!"

Jack chuckled. "We had this mission in the jungle, and four of us got cut off from the rest of our team. We were in the middle of the nastiest, thickest brush you've ever seen. Well, probably ten times worse than that. Anyway, somewhere along the way, in one of the villages, Sam found this axe just laying around."

"And I had this feeling we were gonna need it, so I grabbed it and took it along. Well, there we were in this mess of vines and trees and stuff, and the only way out was with a machete."

"Which nobody had."

"Right. So I started swinging that axe and got us out of there." He rubbed his shoulder unconsciously. "Just talking about it reminds me how sore I was afterwards!"

"So I started calling him Axeman after that. Before then, well, we hadn't really come up with anything good for him yet." Jack chuckled.

"My gosh, what happened to you guys in that picture?" Sasha pointed to a photograph showing the team covered in mud. Some of them grinned, their teeth white against the goo that covered them.

"Football game against a group of Marines." Sam and Jack chorused, looked at each other and laughed as they high fived.

"That was after a week of constant rain in El Salvador."

"We kicked their butts," Jack added. "Hoorah, my..."

"Jack, you behave yourself," Sasha chided, trying to hide her smile behind a stern look.

"I think I still had mud in my boots for weeks after that battle," Sam said as he studied the photograph. "We were so covered with it, I don't even remember where I was in this shot."

"There, right in the middle next to me."

Sam laughed, and a warm smile triggered by good memories crossed his face. "You're right. I don't think we ever got the mud stains out of our shirts, either, did we?"

"Good thing we were wearing our camo pants," Jack replied. "Didn't matter if they looked muddy, just made it better for hiding in the jungle."

The two men sighed and Sam flipped past pictures from other third world nations and unsettled times. He found one of Jack with a young woman who grinned into the camera. "Old girlfriend, Jack?"

"Nope, that was my sister, Frannie. She was in the USO for awhile, and then she settled down and got married. That was at the base in Guam, wasn't it, Axeman?"

"Yeah. You were all dressed up for a date or something, weren't you?"

Jack nodded. "Don't even remember her name."

"Guess that was a memorable occasion," Sasha joked.

"Yeah, must have been. Hey Sam, isn't that Amanda in the background?"

For a few seconds he held his breath as he studied the photo, trying to remember if she was there. "No, she just looks like her. Amanda...you know, she never did come to visit me, even when we were stateside." He shook his head. "Doesn't matter, that's ancient history. Right?"

Yvette wordlessly put her arm around his shoulders and held him close.

"That's right, you got a whole lot more now with Yvette, Axeman. Nothin' to be sorry about."

"You're right, Jack." Sam smiled at Yvette and kissed her lips.

"Looks like you don't have anything newer than '05 in here."

"Yeah, that's all in another album."

"Well," Jack stretched his arms above his head. "We should probably be getting home. You've got kids to get up tomorrow. I've got a side job to take care of."

"Side job? How can you have a side job when you're retired," Sam asked.

Jack grinned. "I suppose you're right. I've been drawing plans for people and helping build houses and stuff, but this, this is something different."

"What is it?" Sam's eyebrow went up, his curiosity aroused.

"Just a little protection service. Some lady has a restraining order against her husband and she's afraid he won't leave her alone, so I'm doing this as a favor to a friend. Just until the divorce is final. He may need a little encouragement to realize that it's over."

"Be careful, Jack." He looked into his friend's eyes. "If you need reinforcements, just call. I mean it!"

"I will, Axeman. You both take care, and we'll see you soon, eh?"

After Jack and Sasha left, Yvette cleaned up the dining room table, while Sam retrieved the album and slipped it back into the bookshelf. He touched the spine and thought about all the good things inside, mixed with the bad, and how they all composed his life and helped to make him who he was today. It was nice to have them in an easily accessible place, instead of that musty old shoebox.

"Thanks, honey."

"For what?" Yvette asked as she threw her arms around him from behind.

"For getting on my case about putting those pictures in the album. Not all the memories were good, but it was a lot of fun sharing them." He turned and kissed her. "Now, let's get to bed. I've got a job with Mike and Jesse tomorrow." He turned out the lights and went upstairs with her beside him, counting his blessings yet again. The pictures never lie. He had a good life, with lots more to come.


End file.
